"Life is very strange," he said dreamily. "Isn't it strange to have cared very much for a thing—and then one day to feel it as nothing at all?"
She looked inquiringly at him.
"My own life, for instance. Up to now, it has been a beautiful story, but now…."
"Now…?"
"Now, I can't see what it is—or if it is anything at all. Going from place to place, from river to river—from one adventure to another…."
Again there was a pause.
"But why do you live so?" she asked timidly. "I have so often wondered."
"I wonder myself sometimes why I must live so—or if I must—but it goes on all the same."
"Must…? But your home … your father and mother, are they still alive? You have never spoken of them."
"Yes, they are still alive."